


Resonance

by Owlship



Series: Lifelines (Soulmate Fics) [3]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, No Dialogue, Semi-Graphic Injuries, Vaguely Implied Background Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-21 14:32:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4832750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlship/pseuds/Owlship
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not the big wounds that transfer between soulmates, usually. Little nicks, bruises, skinned knees; they mirror themselves across skin readily enough. But the dramatic injuries- the broken bones, the third-degree burns, the gunshots? Those tend to stay confined to just one person's flesh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resonance

It's not the big wounds that transfer between soulmates, usually. Little nicks, bruises, skinned knees; they mirror themselves across skin readily enough. But the dramatic injuries- the broken bones, the third-degree burns, the gunshots? Those tend to stay confined to just one person's flesh.

Out in the wastes there's no time to wonder about where this or that scrape came from, just whether it'll heal or fester. Soulmates are a thing of the old world, a holdover from back when people still had souls worth caring about.

Still, it's pretty damn hard to miss the flesh of your forearm splitting apart while you watch, bloody red meat exposed to the air as if sliced by an invisible knife. Max is alone when it happens, has to douse the gape of it with what little moonshine he has before pulling it together himself with catgut-thread and a prayer. It heals into a thick jagged cuff of scar tissue just below his left elbow, leaves his hand feeling as if it's not quite attached to his body anymore, like he'd slipped on a glove and forgotten about it. Nerve damage, the doctors of Before would have said, and lucky that it wasn't deep enough to sever the tendons and arteries completely.

Transference on that level is unusual but not unheard of. Old wives used to say it meant a pair destined to never meet, that it meant a depth of compatibility beyond what other soulmates had, that it meant the universe had made a mistake and was trying to tear such a pair apart.

Max doesn't like to dwell on the fact that it's as much proof as he'll ever get that he has a soulmate out there somewhere, tries not to account for every sore spot, every nick of his skin. He just keeps his arm covered and doesn't look too hard to see if anyone else has the matching scar set into their own flesh.

He'd never actually stopped to consider if he'd gotten off easy with his soul-wound, not until he's falling into step alongside a woman who'd been ready to kill him barely an hour past. There's not much time to think in a gun fight, just the steady rhythm of aim-shoot-reload like a dance, trusting someone has your back because you have theirs.

Afterwards, when there's endless desert before them and near enough the same behind to pretend there isn't anything else in the world but the inside of the rig, that's when there's room to think. To look at the cunning bit of machinery making up the other warrior's hand and wonder. Falling into sync like that was unheard of for a habitual loner like him, didn't seem like it came easy for her either- and yet.

It's meaningless, really, whether she had her own flesh split open at the same time as him or not. Max has had all the human parts of himself burned away long ago, wouldn't know how to forge a connection to another soul with the withered remains of his own anymore even if the urge was there.

There's no one way to tell if you're matched; the marks you get with intent never leave your own skin. Your nerves could light up after the barest contact, or with the press of lips, or not at all. Used to be all sorts of little spells and rituals to try, passed through families and schoolyards and scientific texts, back when meeting someone who could hurt you from miles away was something to celebrate.

Max tucks his arm in a little closer all the same, wraps himself in layers like armor and keeps his distance. There's a pair of girls in the backseat with matching green-yellow bruises wrapped around their wrists, twinned tattoos dark against their fingers. The Warboy tangled up with them doesn't bear anyone's marks but his own and looks desperate for it, for the vulnerability and belonging it promises.

They reach what should have been the promised land and- emotional pain doesn't transfer, never has and never will, and it's one of the only merciful things about this world.

One of the women has a faint ring of scarred-up skin on the nape of her neck, the familiar shape of it hidden beneath her long black hair. In the morning before they ride out there's a fresh mark shadowing the hinge of her jaw, and Max wonders if her branded soulmate carries an echo of it the way he now has a faint impression of teeth set into the skin of his own chest, conjured into being in the dark of night.

He doesn't feel it when the knife slides home through Furiosa's skin and bones, there's no answering constriction in his lungs when she struggles to breathe, no weakness creeping up on him as she bleeds out. All he feels is the cold certainty that if he doesn't do something- anything, everything within his power- to fix it she will die, and the world will lose one of the last brilliantly righteous people left to it.

There's no choice but to open his veins to her, to give her his blood and his name and his soul, and as the red tubing snakes its way between them it sparks a rush of connection from deep within that only confirms what he already knows. As bright as it is it slips by almost unnoticed, his every attention dedicated to feeling for her continued breathing, for the slowly strengthening beat of her heart.

Surely if the hurts transfer then healing can as well, and Max wills every last drop of his strength to become hers with an intensity that should have him running scared.

When the crowd cheers Furiosa's triumphant return and the lift starts rising, she doesn't ask him to stay. She just touches her forehead to his, their parallel wounds smearing into a rorschach butterfly of shared blood, and takes a deep breath as if to remind them both that she can.

She doesn't ask him to stay and that's how Max knows he'll be back, that one day he'll find himself aiming towards the Citadel when the prospect of stillness seems less a death sentence and more a welcome reprieve. Until that day comes he holds the knowledge that his skin is no longer just his own close like a secret, like a promise.


End file.
